PCWize Vol 4, Issue 07 - Outclassed and out talked! February 13, 2000 ______________________________________________________________________ I'm still having a blast setting up Linux, but getting it to run a GUI environment utilizing the full potential of a laptop can be a harrowing experience. After multiple tweaks and hacking configuration files, I finally got it to run beautifully at 1024x768x24. I've said before that Linux isn't for everyone, but if you're an environment tweaker then there is no better OS to do it with. There isn't much that can't be configured just the way you want it. You just gotta figure out how to do it first! :^) ------ I'm a procrastinator to the nth degree. Nothing sums it up more than the fact that I'm now finally taking a Japanese language course through our local university. Let's see, how sad is this. I've been in Japan for six years, and even worse, I've been married to a Japanese girl for nearly ten years. In all this time, I've learned how to ask for a beer, and for the directions to a bathroom. Very useful phrases in their own right, but they just don't make for very interesting conversation. :^) Japanese is a very interesting language, but whoever developed their counting system needs to be drug out onto the street and shot. This system is very difficult to grasp. For example, you count flat objects differently than long slender objects, which are counted differently from round objects, which are counted differently from counting people, which are counted differently from counting bound objects, which are... Do you have a headache yet? I do! So what prompted me to take Japanese? The fact that my two year old daughter was losing me in conversations. Nothing is more humbling than being out talked by a two year old. ______________________________________________________________________ TOC 1. Voting Booth and Other PCWize Stuff 2. Software Review 3. Cool Sites 4. Tips, Tricks, Do's and Don't Do's 5. That's the news! 6. Security Issues, Hoaxes, Viruses and Other Urban Legends 7. PCWize Contests and winner announcement If the columns in the below articles appear misaligned, it's because you are using a non-fixed width font. If you would like to see them nice and straight, change your e-mail font to Courier New. ______________________________________________________________________ ** A word from our sponsors ** ------ Tired of slow connections? Modem Booster keeps your connection at TOP speed and accelerates your Internet surfing. Tweak your modem speed to the MAX with this Internet connection optimizer. Modem Booster accelerates your Web browsing by 10-50% on the average and up to 300% on the extreme. "This utility will speed up your online access." PC Magazine's First Looks. For more info go to http://www.inklineglobal.net ------ Want to see your advertisement here? For more information, go here: ______________________________________________________________________ 1. Voting Booth and Other PCWize Stuff ------ Click here to vote for PCWize as one of the best newsletters in the "E-zines Top Ten Poll"! It's just a click, no need to fill anything out. ------ Come visit the PCWize forum and live chat. You may discuss anything computer related and it's a good place to get help with any computer questions you may have. ______________________________________________________________________ 2. Software Review ------ Name: Modem Booster by inKline Global, Inc Genre: Internet Tweaks Platform: PC Qin95/98/00/NT Type/Cost: Trialware / $19.95 USD Size: 1.25MB Homepage: Download: In issue 4.02, I told you about modem tweaking utility called Speedtec. I recently tried out yet another modem tweaker called Modem Booster that took an even more advanced approach to getting the most out of your Internet connection settings. While their ad states that you could theoretically get as much as a 300% increase in connection speed, I found this a little hard to believe. However, I did get about a 10% increase over the settings that Speedtec had made. What makes Modem Booster unique is that it runs diagnostics from multiple connections to determine which are the best settings. This can take anywhere up to a couple of hours, but once it's done, it'll give you the best performance possible. ______________________________________________________________________ 3. Cool Sites ------ Snarg I first heard about Snarg in Fred Langa's Langalist newsletter. It sounded interesting, especially since it was supposed to be a very well done site and nobody had a clue as to its purpose. I popped on in and was immediately fascinated. The visual and aural presentation was beautifully done, and there were just so many things to click on. I say "things", because this isn't your run of the mill site. I too, was unable to discern any purpose in it other than to be aesthetically pleasing. None of the links really do anything other than to add or change an object on the screen or to change the music. Regardless, it was well worth the visit. Still, when the clueless boat leaves, someone let me know. I need to be on it. ______________________________________________________________________ 4. Tips, Tricks, Do's and Don't Do's ------ A couple of people sent in the URLs to some programs that skinned your IE toolbar. For those of you who don't know what skinning is, it's basically changing the look and sometimes even the feel of a program. If you use Microsoft Plus themes, then you've already done some skinning of Microsoft Windows. I started looking around for programs that let you skin folders themselves, but was only able to find software to skin the IE toolbar (although this also affected the folder view toolbars as well.) This was fun for a little while, but I wanted even more customization. In the last few issues, we've been playing with the folder.htt file which is basically just an HTML file (htt stands for HyperText Template.) Being that it is just an HTML file, you can change what it displays in the folder views. I don't really want to delve into how the folder.htt is put together, because that involves quite a bit of Javascripting. However, you can make some quick and easy changes to the images Windows uses on the left hand pane of a folder view (the one with clouds, the horizontal line, and file/folder information.) Three things you should know about are: C:\Windows\Web\wvleft.bmp - The cloud image C:\Windows\Web\wvline.gif - The multi-hued horizontal line HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar key The first two are self explanatory, and the registry key is needed to change the image used for the toolbar in IE and folder views. For those of you who don't feel gutsy enough to play with your registry, I've exported the key, and with just a little simple editing by you with a text editor, you can have it automagically install itself to the registry. You will need to cut and paste everything between the %<---------- into a text file. %<---------- REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar] "BackBitmap"="C:\\Data\\Images\\myimage.bmp" %<---------- Once you've pasted it into a text file, then you need to save it to something like IEToolPic.REG. Make sure the extension is .REG, or it won't automagically install when you double-click it. If you look at the last line of the above key, you will notice that it has a path to a file called myimage.bmp. You'll also notice that between each folder name and the file myimage.bmp, are two forward slashes. This isn't a typo, so don't remove the extra forward slashes. You need to create an image (or use an existing one) that is horizontally the same number of pixels as your current display settings. For example if you have a desktop that is set to 1024x768, then your image needs to be 1024 pixels wide. This is so the image doesn't end abruptly in case you maximize the folder view or IE window. For the vertical height, I used 120 pixels so that I would have some room to play with when resizing windows. I'd start with these settings and then crop down to the correct size once you get comfortable with how it works. Ok, so now you've got your toolbar image ready to go. How do you get it installed? Just edit the IEToolPic.REG (or whatever you called it), and change the path/filename in the last line to point at your image that you wish to use. Once that's done, save it, then double-click the IEToolPic.REG file and it will ask if you want to update the registry. Say "Yes", and then open up a folder somewhere on your hard drive. If it all went well, you should now have a nice image filling the toolbar. You will most likely have to play around with the image colors and shading, as some of the button text may be difficult to read on dark backgrounds. Alright, let's move on. I told you about two image files called wvleft.bmp and wvline.gif. By editing these two images (make a backup copy first so that you can return them to normal if necessary), you can further customize your folders appearance. In fact, I've done just that, and you can download the fruits of my labor here: If you'd like to see how your folders will look with my skins, go to . The ZIP file contains the both the wvleft.bmp and wvline.gif images that you will replace the original ones with, and it also contains the toolbar background image shown in the folderskin.jpg image from above. Something you should be aware of, is that both the wvleft.bmp and wvline.gif images are hidden. You will need to change your folder settings to see hidden files. You can do this by following these simple directions: Click on View (while a folder is open), select Folder Properties, View tab, under Hidden Files, select the Show All Files radio button, Click OK. I'd like to see some of your folder skins too. If I get enough entries, I'll choose three of what I consider to be the best and put them on a web page for the PCWize readers to vote on. After two weeks, I'll tally the votes and the winner will get a free software prize from our current sponsor. The deadline for submitting your entries is February 20th. You can submit as many entries as you wish, but even if all three are the best of the submissions, I'll only be able to choose one of them for the vote. This is to ensure that a talented artist doesn't sweep the contest. ______________________________________________________________________ 5. That's the news! ------ 400GB of data storage in one square inch of medium! Where do I sign up? Unfortunately, nowhere quite yet. Reminiscent of olden day punchcards, new plastic cards can hold up to 100 times the amount of data that todays hardrives can. Maybe even in the somewhat near future a dime sized piece could hold up to a terrabyte. Now if they just make sure that they're removable media with good access times, the world will be a much more interesting place. ______________________________________________________________________ 6. Security Issues, Hoaxes, Viruses and Other Urban Legends ------ Please visit http://www.pcwize.com/tech/computer/secdef.shtml if you would like to know the definitions for hoaxes, viruses, worms and urban legends. ------ False Positives: Those of you using Norton Anti-Virus, the following false positives were identified: Definitions for 12/27/99 - Certain Shockwave programs were said to have PWSteal.Trojan Definitions for 01/27/00 - ICQMAPI.DLL was said to have BackDoor.SubSeven Trojan If you keep your virus definition files up to date, then you shouldn't have any problems with these. I usually try to use Live Update at the end of every week so I'm never more than seven days from the last update. ______________________________________________________________________ 7. PCWize Contests and Winner Announcement ------ Each week PCWize holds a random drawing contest and gives away free stuff (usually software) to its subscribers. We will continue to do this as long as there are advertisers who are willing to provide the prizes. If you are such an individual/company, then please contact me at editor@pcwize.com so that we can work a deal. ------ This week's sponsor is inKline Global Inc., and they have developed some great applications to make your daily life much easier. Please visit their web site to get the lowdown on all the great products they have, and to help keep the PCWize newsletter FREE! ------ The winner of this weeks random drawing contest is: Vickie Riddle ______________________________________________________________________ Well, that's it for this issue! Have a good week and I'll see you in seven days. Leif Gregory Copyright © 1997-00 by Leif Gregory. All rights reserved. You may share this copy of the PCWize newsletter with others as long as it is reprinted in it's entirety to include the copyright notice and subscription directions. If you've received this edition of the PCWize newsletter from a friend or colleague and wish to start receiving your own copy, then click the below link and send the generated e-mail message. I have made every attempt to ensure that all information contained in this newsletter is accurate to the best of my ability. Due to the myriad of possible configurations in the PC platform, information and software discussed here may not always work with your particular configuration. That being said, Leif Gregory and the PCWize newsletter can not be held liable for any damages you may incur either directly or indirectly from the use of anything contained in this newsletter. PCWize does not endorse any of the products or services provided by advertisers in this newsletter. As with anything in life, please check the credibility of the advertiser as well as to use common sense. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. PCWize Editor PCWize Homepage Unsubscribe